Solutions to Fit Your Needs
As your strategic partner, Darden provides relevant, innovative and market-driven programs:
- Custom Programs - The curriculum is tailored to meet the specific needs of your organization providing learning that transforms your business strategy into results. Your leaders meet as one group, learn from each other, network among themselves and discuss your specific business challenges.
- Corporate Universities - A series of well-designed, integrated and progressive custom programs educate and develop leaders at all levels throughout the firm. Leaders gain and share knowledge within specific talent pools supporting a business-wide talent development strategy.
- Open-Enrollment Programs - Individual leaders develop specific competencies in targeted, functional and general management areas. They learn from leaders in a diverse range of global organizations and form lasting networking relationships.
Strategic Advisors with 20+ Years Real-World Experience
Darden's senior directors provide valuable strategic advice on emerging areas of importance and fresh viewpoints to maximize the value of the learning for your organization. Your organization's leaders will gain new knowledge, enhanced leadership and management skills, and capabilities that are of immediate use.
Lou Centini
Senior Director
Lecturer of Business Administration
Lou’s current areas of interest include strategy, leadership and change, human resources and management development. Lou is a consultant to many organizations in the areas of business strategy, human resources, teambuilding, leadership development and change management. He has taught extensively in Darden Executive Education programs and courses at the University of Virginia, Cornell University and Western Connecticut State University. Lou joined the Darden faculty in 1990. Previously, he had almost 20 years of professional management experience in industry, including a position as director of human resources for a subsidiary of the Weyerhaeuser Company. He also held a variety of human resource and executive development positions with the Berol Corporation and the Miller Brewing Company.
Education: B.S., Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University; M.S.A., Human Resource Development, Western Connecticut State University
R.W. (Skip) Culbertson
Senior Director
Skip joined Darden Executive Education after a two-year assignment helping to successfully launch Darden’s MBA for Executives, for which he served as the associate director of marketing. His current areas of interest include leadership development, business strategy implementation and change management. Before joining Darden, Skip invested more than 20 years of his professional career in senior human resource roles with Chevron, including assignments as the chief HR officer with the company’s global chemical, trading and transportation, upstream technology and global refining and marketing businesses. He has also been an entrepreneur in the retailing business and served as managing director for the Blue Sky Consulting Group, a boutique management consulting firm specializing in organizational effectiveness. Currently, he is working on an important research project seeking to empirically define the business value of executive education
Education: B.A. in English, Allegheny College; M.S. in Industrial Relations, West Virginia University. He also attended the Fielding Institute’s Ph.D. program in organizational development.
Nancy Dunnells
Senior Director
Nancy’s expertise includes leading and managing people and teams, strategy development and execution, change leadership and management, executive presence, client-relationship development, major account management and leadership coaching. Her expertise is rooted in a 20+ year career in industry as a leader and manager at AT&T, Digital Equipment Corporation and Cable & Wireless Global; and as a business consultant at Huthwaite, Inc. and Manchester, Inc.
Education: B.A., French Literature, State University of New York at Binghamton; M.S., Organization Development, The American University; Leadership Coaching Certificate, Georgetown University
Jeff Pottinger
Senior Director
Jeff 's current areas of interest include strategy, leading change and influence and persuasion. He is the Program Manager for federal government executive education programs where he works closely with clients to develop executive learning programs and strategic direction. Previously, he served seven years as the Managing Director at Cowan & Associates, Inc., a small, veteran-owned consulting firm headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, as well as several years with Circuit City Stores leading a 2-state district with $100 million in annual sales. During his twenty-four year career in the U.S. Navy Supply Corps, Jeff served in a variety of challenging information technology, supply chain management and leadership positions, retiring as a Captain in 2001.
Education: BS in Business Administration, The Ohio State University; MBA, University of Virginia Darden School of Business; Senior Executive Program, Columbia University; Balanced Scorecard certificate from George Washington University; PDI PROFILOR® 3600 coach.